And when I think about Coretta Scott King, I think about the little girl who walked
five
miles to school on those rural Alabama roads and felt the heat of racism each
day she passed the door of the Whites-only school, so much closer to home. It didn't matter, because she studied and succeeded
and excelled beyond most of her classmates, Black and White. She earned a
college degree, and an acceptance to a prestigious graduate school up North.

And one day she met a young preacher from Atlanta, and
she fell in love with him. And he told her his dreams -- and she believed in those
dreams.
And she decided that she would help to make them real -- not just as a wife or
as a friend, but as a partner in freedom's cause.

Over the next years, Coretta Scott King did that
in so many ways we can't even imagine. She raised a family, she marched through
the streets, she inspired through song, she led through speech -- even dodged
the countless attempts on her family's life.

And one of -- when one of those attempts finally took her love
from this world, she made the selfless decision to carry on. With no time to
even cry or mourn, to wallow in anger or vengeance, Coretta Scott King took to
the streets just four days after the assassination and led 50,000
through the streets of Memphis in a march for the kind of justice that her
husband had given his life for. She spent the rest of here marching for that same justice -- leading the
King Center for Nonviolent Social
Change in Atlanta, and spreading her family's message of hope to every corner of
this world.

You know, I had the great honor of -- of knowing Mrs. King, and the
occasion to visit with her in Atlanta last year. She was an extraordinarily
gracious woman. We sat and chatted in her living room. We -- She showed me an album of
photographs of her and Dr. King and the children. And then she told me what her husband
had said to her once, at a time when she was feeling burdened, understandably,
by all the stress and strain that had been placed on the family as a consequence
of his role in the Civil Rights Movement. She said her husband suggested that:

When you are willing
to make sacrifices for a great cause, you will never be alone because you will have divine companionship and the support of good
people.

That was her husband's
advice to her -- that when you are willing to make sacrifices for a
great cause, you will never be alone.

Coretta Scott King died in
her sleep last night. She certainly was not alone. She was joined by
the companionship and support of a loving family and a grateful Nation
-- inspired by her cause, dedicated to her work, and mournful of her
passing.

My thoughts, condolences today are with her children.

And I ask that she and her
husband now rest together in eternal peace.